Malls And Businesses

Is that one of the businesses you've seen changed by COVID? I guess doctors' businesses would still be kinda on topic here, although COVID hits them closer to home. I think a few of the practices I saw were struggling, one of which (urologist) called me in more often than I believe was necessary, viewing me as a low-risk way to fill their billable hours. The waiting room used to have 20-30 patients in it, and during the height of things there were maybe 4-5 of us in there (a common sight in other doctors' offices.) The doctor would make an appointment in the system without consulting me every month. As soon as the vaccines hit and people were becoming more mobile again, she made an appointment to see me in a year!!! I had a cardiologist doing something similar. Talk about feeling used.

 

OR there is something about the real purpose of the shot that requires this regime.

If I had a doctor slow-roll me because of not being vaxed, I would politely try to tease their reasoning out of them in an effort to help their dignity, their professionalism and their self-respect overcome their marching orders. I would just want to disrupt their rhythm, they don't have to say it out loud. At least, that's the fantasy...

 

Penny's is the only major outlet left in the Bangor Mall in Maine, as Sears, Macy's, Toys R Us, and Bed, Bath & Beyond have either gone out of business or shut down their outlet in the Bangor Mall. Several of the smaller spaces in the mall are also empty. They've quit doing maintenance on the parking lot so it's pretty well torn up, and they've closed a couple of exits from the parking lot rather than repairing the pavement, which further discourages people from going to the mall.

 

Brick and mortar stores, in general, are going to have to offer something extra in order to compete with Amazon.com and all of the other online retailers, including their own franchise online markets. Most are going to have a hard time doing that. With the overhead associated with a brick-and-mortar store and the fact that independent stores can't reach the number of sales necessary to be able to buy their products at a competitive price, I don't think they'll be able to compete on price.

However, I think that hardware stores are going to be around for a while because, for one thing, most people like to be able to hold and see the tools that they're going to buy but, perhaps more importantly, when someone goes to a hardware store, it's often for something that they need at the moment, and won't necessarily want to wait around for two weeks for Amazon.com to deliver it to them. Also, many independent, and even franchise, hardware stores will offer other things, such as making keys, assembling products, showing people how to do things, and so on.

Similarly, lumber stores, which often double as hardware stores, can offer a lot that couldn't be had online. Although I won't swear that it can't be done, I don't think that most people who need lumber will order it from Amazon.com or even the online version of Lowe's or Home Depot. If they are buying wood for a small product, they'll bring it home themselves; otherwise, the store will deliver it. Plus, lumber yards will often cut boards to the lengths wanted by the customer.

In rural areas, where grocery delivery services are not available, we all go to grocery stores, but my wife and I have started to buy many of the staples that we can order online from Amazon.com because 1) the prices are better, and 2) our orders are delivered to us. Now that Maine has enacted the no-free-grocery-bag law that they put into place a couple of years ago, there is an even greater reason to buy groceries online. However, we do still have to buy a large percentage of our food from the grocery store, and we might want to pick out our own fruits, vegetables, and meats ourselves, anyhow. But, if we lived in a place where Amazon.com delivered groceries, we'd buy more of our stuff from them.

I don't like any of this. I would much rather have a bunch of lucrative local stores that I could shop at, but the price differences, the fact that they don't even bag stuff up for me anymore, the masks, and the often shortened hours, have made it difficult to continue to support these brick-and-mortar stores.

I particularly miss bookstores, and especially used bookstores. While I know that they still exist in places, we don't have any around here. Oh, there's a bookstore of some sort in the Bangor Mall - Books a Million, I think - but after Borders went out of business, the new company discontinued the regional books section that Borders and the one that preceded them had, which was really the only reason to shop in a bookstore. I liked seeing books that were written by Maine authors, and particularly those who are not well-known and may never be popular outside of the state. I think there's still a used bookstore in downtown Bangor but parking is prohibitive there, so I never go.